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Tag: Empire

  • EMPIRE Fallen: Church Divided – Part 2

    EMPIRE Fallen: Church Divided – Part 2

    9 August, AD 2013 – This time in history.

    Genesis 1:2a King James Version – And the earth was without form, and void…

    ‘without form’ – tohuw – place of chaos;

    “Most history is untold and unknown to most.

    We look at history as a timeline of what someone has suggested has relevance to our own lives.

    AD abbreviation – Anno Domini (used to indicate that a date comes the specified number of years after the traditional date of Christ’s birth). Forgotten in secular timelines.

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    AD 753 – AD 1806 — The Holy Roman Empire

    By the time of its end, the Holy Roman Empire was far from holy, had nothing to do with Rome and evolved slowly from powerful Empire of Charlemagne to a powerless attempt to keep title of sovereignty from Napoleon.  The sometime anarchy from power plays of royalty and church leadership was just one facet of a complex schism of the Church with political alliances divided between Rome in the West and Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem in the East.

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    AD 1375– AD 1378 The War of the Eight Saints, carried on with spates of unprecedented cruelty to civilians…

    9 August, in the year of our Lord 1378, French bishops declared Urban VI’s election as pope invalid. This began the great schism in which two and then three popes claimed the Holy See of Rome at once. Once in office, Urban (ca. 1318–1389) had become overbearing.

    1378 A.D to 1417 A.D. – Western Schism or Papal Schism was a split within the Catholic Church.  Two men simultaneously claimed to be the true pope, driven by politics rather than any theological disagreement. The Western Schism is sometimes called the Great Schism, although this term is also applied to the East–West Schism of 1054 A.D.

    “Doubt still shrouds the validity of the three rival lines of pontiffs during the four decades subsequent to the still disputed papal election of 1378. This makes suspect the credentials of the cardinals created by the Roman, Avignon, and Pisan claimants to the Apostolic See.” [3]

    Urban was declared excommunicated by the French antipope and was called “the Antichrist“, while Catherine of Siena, defending Pope Urban, called the cardinals “devils in human form.

    On the death of Charles of Naples in 1386, Urban contrived to take advantage of the anarchy which had ensued and in August 1388 Urban moved from Perugia with thousands of troops.

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    AD 1432 – Mehmed II was born in this capital of the Ottoman Empire. Islamic education had a great impact in molding the mindset of Mehmed and reinforcing his Muslim beliefs. He began to praise and promote the application of Sharia law.

    The influence of Ak Şemseddin in Mehmed’s life became predominant from a young age, especially in the imperative of fulfilling his Islamic duty to overthrow the Byzantine empire by conquering Constantinople.[5]

    AD 1453 – The capture of Constantinople marked the end of the last remnant of the Roman Empire, an imperial state which had lasted for nearly 1,500 years.  The Christian Church had been divided by the Great Schism of 1378 for less than 80 years and the enemy of Christ extends the political and religious power of Islam.

    Edirne, in northwest Turkey located north of the Aegean Sea and south of the Black sea, was formerly known as Adrianople and borders areas of conquest between Rome and its invaders.  During the existence of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, the Crusaders were decisively defeated by the Bulgarian Emperor Kaloyan in the battle of Adrianople (1205).

    To be continued…

  • EMPIRE Fallen; Church Divided – Part 1

    EMPIRE Fallen; Church Divided – Part 1

    8 August, 2013 A.D. – This time in history.

    Genesis 1:2a King James Version – And the earth was without form, and void…

    Creation, mankind, nations, the church, families and individuals ALL have a history.

    “Most history is untold and unknown to most.

    We look at history as a timeline of what someone has suggested has relevance to our own lives.  Take just this particular day from American history for example.  August 8, 1635 AD, Roger Williams was sentenced to banishment by the British colony of Massachusetts for his differing religious views. In exile he founded Rhode Island on principles of freedom of conscience.

    Among other issues of the time, Christians were divided not only as Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Catholic minorities in the Colonies, but Protestants were divided in Europe and the New World over other doctrine, including use of the Geneva Bible or the King James Bible.

    In the Empire of Great Britain, Prince James became King of Scotland on 24 July, 1567, at the age of 13 months, after his mother Mary, Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate. Mary fled to England, where she was imprisoned for the next 19 years. Mary and Elizabeth were heirs through different mothers, among the six wives of: “Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head”

    When Elizabeth I died childless, James inherited the throne. He married Anne of Denmark and fathered several children, dissolved Parliament in 1622, and allegedly had sexual relationships with both women and men.  King James, who also authored several books about himself, was quoted as saying, “Monarchy is the greatest thing on earth. Kings are rightly called gods since just like God they have power of life and death over all their subjects in all things. They are accountable to God only … so it is a crime for anyone to argue about what a king can do.”

    8 August, 1635 A.D, is just twelve years after King James dissolved Parliament and Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts to Rhode Island.

    You may know well the partial histories of Henry VIII creating new political alliances that broke relationship between the British Throne and the Roman Catholic Church.  You may know of the previous separation of Protestants under Martin Luther from the Roman Catholic Church.

    One related history of the English Bible is that of William Tyndale.  He is frequently referred to as the “Architect of the English Language”, (even more so than William Shakespeare) as so many of the phrases Tyndale coined are still in our language today.

    William Tyndale’s New Testament, 1525-26, was defiance of protest against Papal authority.  It was printed in Germany, where Martin Luther’s New Testament was first printed in 1529. One risked death by burning if caught in mere possession of Tyndale’s forbidden books.  Having God’s Word available to the public in the language of the common man, English, would have meant disaster to the church. No longer would they control access to the scriptures. If people were able to read the Bible in their own tongue, the church’s income and power would crumble.

    Tyndale’s flight was an inspiration to freedom-loving Englishmen who drew courage from the 11 years that he was hunted. Books and Bibles flowed into England in bales of cotton and sacks of flour. Tyndale was arrested and imprisoned for over 500 days of horrible conditions. He was tried for heresy and treason in a ridiculously unfair trial, and convicted.

    Tyndale was then strangled and burnt at the stake in the prison yard, Oct. 6, 1536. His last words were, “Lord, open the king of England’s eyes.” This prayer was answered three years later, in the publication of King Henry VIII’s 1539 English “Great Bible”.  (In 1539, Spain annexes Cuba and Hernando De Soto claims Florida for Spain.)

    The great American Empire of the 20th century little remembers that England and Spain, Empires of the day, would be divided and fall, as had the great empires of earlier history, most notably Rome.  At the center of this great history of the conquest and sin of man, God remains sovereign over Creation, mankind, nations, the church, families and individuals.

    To be continued…